Economic & Political Weekly: Table of Contents

Can an Election be Tweeted to Victory?

AAP, Arvind and a City State Called Delhi

Vol - L No. 8, February 21, 2015 | Pamela Philipose 

• Commentary

How and why did AAP's social media campaign succeed while that of the Bharatiya Janata Party's fail? An analysis of the social media campaign of the Aam Aadmi Party in the Delhi elections.

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GDP Numbers: More Puzzles, More Confusion

Vol - L No. 8, February 21, 2015 

• Editorials

The Central Statistics Offi ce needs to do a lot of convincing to establish the accuracy of its new statistics.

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Book Reviews The Coal of India Geetanjoy Sahu The Coal Nation: Histories, Ecologies and Politics of Coal in India edited by Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2014; pp 348, £63 (hardback). Read more	Reports From the States / Web Exclusives The Rot in Maharashtra Attack on Comrade Govind Pansare Maya Pandit Govind Pansare fought against the right wing agenda to appropriate the syncretic political and cultural traditions of Maharashtra. This seemed to have earned him the ire of divisive forces and political opponents.  Read more
Reports From the States / Web Exclusives Railways and the Issue of Inner Line Permit in Arunachal Pradesh Can the Two Function Together? David Gao With Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagging off the Naharlagun-New Delhi AC Express 20 February 2015, the remote state of Arunachal Pradesh has been formally been put on the railway map of India. However, this momentous development has stoked fear... Read more	Editorials On the Verge of Extinction Can the middle-level leadership of the Congress muster courage to oust the old guard? Read more
Editorials Environmental Hypocrisy All governments somehow fi nd ways to subvert laws they enact. Read more	Insight The Indelible Class Identity Ethnographic Examination of a School Jyoti Dalal How regular schooling unfolds for children should be an important concern in the light of the Right to Education Act, 2009 that makes schooling not just free, but also compulsory. While getting children to school is a central pillar of the state... Read more
Special Articles Constituent Assembly Debates on Language Rama Kant Agnihotri Even though India's Constituent Assembly debates were informed by remarkable seriousness, scholarship, and integrity, most of the linguistic decisions taken by the Constituent Assembly, in many cases insightful, were located in consensual... Read more	Commentary Sri Lanka: A Democratic Revolution in the Making? Rohini Hensman, Faizun Zackaria Change in Sri Lanka cannot end with the defeat of Mahinda Rajapaksa. An overhaul of the executive presidency and accountability for all war crimes going back to the 1970s need to be established and a new economic and social programme needs to be... Read more
Commentary Demographic Change and the Environment C M Lakshmana Though there is a fair understanding of the ways in which India's population is changing as well as of the social and economic implications of these changes, little attention has so far been paid to its possible environmental impact. This... Read more	Commentary Proliferation of Astrological Services and Rising Superstitions Sanjay Tiwari Ironically, the revolution in communications and technology has also led to a manifold increase in superstitions, leading to irrational beliefs and practices. This article is based on informal discussions with the employees of a call centre in... Read more
Commentary Minoritarian Rule How India’s Electoral System Created the Illusion of a BJP Landslide Geoffrey Macdonald, Babak Moussavi India's 2014 election results showed a high degree of disproportionality in the conversion of votes to seats. The Bharatiya Janata Party won only 31% of the vote and its vote was highly geographically concentrated. The BJP's "... Read more	Commentary Enhancing PESA The Unfi nished Agenda Kamal Nayan Choubey Amendments proposed by the previous Congress-led union government to the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 had the potential of improving upon this progressive legislation. Unfortunately, with its successor pursuing different... Read more
Special Articles Health Aspects of the Environmental Impact Assessment Process in India Adithya Pradyumna Impact assessments are conducted with the objective of safeguarding human health and the environment. The Environmental Impact Assessment notification of 2006, subsequent amendments and associated guidelines provide the framework to document... Read more	Notes Immigrants and Immigration in India A Fresh Approach Binod Khadria, Perveen Kumar India has been receiving large numbers of immigrants, mostly from the neighbouring countries of South Asia, and some from other parts of the world, and hence she needs to be seen as a major immigration country. The article provides a detailed... Read more
Discussion The Nicobarese 'Letters of Sufferings: In Protest, Respectfully Yours' Ajay Saini I read Pankaj Sekhsaria’s “Disaster as a Catalyst for Military Expansionism: The Case of the Nicobar Islands” (EPW, 3 January 2015) with interest. Throughout, Sekhsaria poses... Read more	Book Reviews Left and the Right-Left Ninad Pandit Leftism in India, 1917-1947 by Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri (New Delhi: Macmillan Publishers), 2011; pp xiv + 254; Rs 375 (hardback). Read more
Book Reviews Traumatised Tamil Communities Anuk Arudpragasam Scarred Communities: Psychosocial Impact of Man-made and Natural Disaster by Daya Somasundaram (New Delhi: Sage Publications), 2014; pp liv + 453; Rs 1,250. Read more	Postscript Art as Commodity Nada Faris Perhaps it is more accurate to define elite art in today’s world market as currency instead of commodity, and to describe galleries and auctions as the new stockmarket. Read more
Postscript The Great Charlie Hebdo Gamble Anjum Altaf In publishing the material they did, the editors at Charlie Hebdo either misread the context or were fully aware of the risk they were incurring and felt it was worth taking. Read more	Postscript Toddler Trails Dharitri Bhattacharjee Hiking through two of the largest countries in Latin America with a 15-month-old baby in tow was a particularly rewarding, if exhausting, experience. Read more
Postscript A God of Climbing Shyam G Menon Belapur in Navi Mumbai, the region’s capital for the rock-climbing sport of bouldering, is fast losing its appeal due to fervent religious worshippers.